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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”